A WOMAN who was badly injured when teenage joyriders smashed into her car, today slammed their sentences, saying that flogging would have been a better deterrent.

As reported in last night's BEN, Carol Hornby, aged 47, of Fairways, Horwich,spent 30 days in hospital and is still recovering from the injuries she suffered in the accident at Stocks Park Drive, Horwich in May this year.

When he appeared at Bolton Youth Court on Wednesday, the driver, who was 15 at the time of the crash, was sent to a Young Offenders' Institution for five months and disqualified from driving for five years. He had admitted disqualified driving and aggravated taking of a car.

His 14-year-old passenger, who admitted allowing himself to be carried in the stolen car, was given a supervision order for 12 months with a three year driving ban.

Mrs Hornby, mother of a 12-year-old boy, said: "Why bother, it's neither here nor there." She went on: "I received 150 cards at the time. I just feel that if they had been given a flogging every one of those people would have gone to watch. Everyone who has been connected with it feels the same." Mrs Hornby described the trauma of the crash and her struggle to achieve a full recovery, which doctors tell her is still 12 to 18 months away. She was driving home from work at a Bolton solicitors when the accident took place, only yards from her home.

"It was just a few minutes after quarter past one. I was driving on Stocks Park Drive, through a sleepy little estate. It was a nice sunny day and everyone was out in their gardens and then it just stopped everyone dead.

"From what I can gather the youth got out of the passenger window and ran away. I was trapped for about an hour."

Mrs Hornby broke her pelvis in six places and bones on either side of her groin. After 30 days in hospital she was only allowed home in an ambulance and had to have visits from a physio. "I progressed from a zimmer to elbow crutches and then two walking sticks, and now one stick. I am not very good at crossing a road. I feel I need the stick to warn traffic that I am a bit slow. I was determined to drive again but I am now a very nervous driver. But I hope it will get better."

She says she feels bitter and angry at the sentences imposed on the two teenagers.

"I am not shocked, it was no more than I expected. But it is not a deterrent. They will probably do it again."

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